Update: I was unfortunately not aware of Shamus Young's severe criticism of Fallout 3 available here to link in the original piece and I regret that. It dovetails rather nicely with what I've written and it's much better executed than my piece. I strongly recommend anyone...

Twenty years after Nintendo's biggest franchise was born, the Mario Bros.® return in a dazzling, all-new platformer sure to set players' fingers twitching. Fans from Mario's classic days will see their dreams answered in this return to the Mushroom Kingdom, while a new generation of Mario™ players will learn what true platforming greatness means.

Jump, bounce and power-up through visually stunning side-scrolling worlds filled with Mushroom Kingdom madness. Mushrooms make Mario ultra-tiny or ultra-huge, and new items like the Blue Shell (which transforms Mario into a spinning shell that wipes out enemies) will keep players on their toes.

The worlds are swarming with classic enemies like Goombas and Koopas, but watch out for new foes, big bosses and unbelievable challenges.

As Mario and Luigi, two players can battle for stars on specially designed levels over local wireless. The game won't end until one bro. reigns supreme.

Game Storyline: Bowser and Bowser Jr. have kidnapped Princess Peach again, and only Mario can save her.

Characters: Mario, Luigi, a ton of Mushroom Kingdom enemies, both new and old, Peach, Bowser and Bowser Jr.

How to progress through the game: Run, jump and battle enemies through multiple levels in each world. Every time players finish one world, they can move onto the next, but each level features impediments in the forms of fortresses, Hammer Bros. and bosses. After defeating the boss of each world, players can move on to the next, culminating in the final fight in the last world.

Special powers/weapons/moves/features: Mario and Luigi can do all kinds of jump maneuvers: increasingly high triple jumps, wall jumps and high bounces off enemies.

Mario also can use power-ups like Mushrooms (grow big), Fire Flowers (throw fireballs), Starmen (become invincible), Blue Shells (turn into a speedy, blue Koopa shell) and other mushrooms that make him tiny or huge.

In addition to the main game and the wireless two-player mode, players also can use the touch screen to play tons of minigames (either by themselves or over DS Local Area Network with 1 to 4 players via DS Download Play). These include card games, target-bopping-type games and much more.

Content on this page comes directly from press releases and fact sheets provided by publishers and developers and was not written by the Game Revolution staff.